<html>
<head>
  <title>What's coming in MediaGoblin 1.0?</title>
  <meta name="date" content="2012-11-06 10:00" />
  <meta name="author" content="Christopher Allan Webber" />
</head>
<body>
<p class="centered">
  <a href="/pages/campaign.html"
     ><img src="/blog_images/feature_puzzle.png"
           alt="Building our way to 1.0!" /></a>
</p>

<p>So the <a href="/pages/campaign.html">MediaGoblin fundraiser</a> is
in its last week, and we're coming near our goal of funding one year
of dedicated MediaGoblin development.  We're hoping over the next year
to hit a point of MediaGoblin for the masses... AKA MediaGoblin 1.0!
But wait... what exactly <i>is</i> MediaGoblin 1.0?</p>

<p>To answer that, we need to go over two things: what we already
have, and what we're going to have.  Let's go over the first list
first...</p>

<h2>Features we have (and will continue to improve on before 1.0):</h2>
<ul>
  <li>
    <p>
      <b>Image, video, and audio publishing</b>
    </p>
    <p>
      MediaGoblin provides image, video, and audio publishing out of the
      box, making it a self-hostable and free replacement for services
      like Flickr, YouTube, and Soundcloud.
    </p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>Flexible storage system</b></p>
   
    <p>MediaGoblin has a
      <a href="http://wiki.mediagoblin.org/Storage">flexible storage
      system</a> built in.  It comes with a local file storage option
      as well as integration with OpenStack's "Swift" storage system,
      so you can offload hosting to something like Rackspace
      Cloudfiles or equivalent.  You can even add entirely new storage
      mechanisms.</p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>Media types are extensible</b></p>

    <p>Images, video, and audio are just the beginning.  MediaGoblin was
      <a href="http://wiki.mediagoblin.org/Processing">designed to be
      extensible for entirely new media types</a>.  For fun, you can
      use the AsciiArt example media type, or you could even build
      something entirely new.  Want to support presentations or
      e-books?  Or maybe you want to have 3d model support?
      MediaGoblin was designed from day 1 to be extensible to fit the
      needs of whatever types of files you want.</p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>Commenting</b></p>

    <p>MediaGoblin supports basic, markdown-enabled commenting on media
      entries.</p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>GeoLocation / OpenStreetMap integration</b></p>

    <p>Does your camera have a GPS?  MediaGoblin can put your photos on a
      map, so you can see where they're taken.</p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>Galleries and collections</b></p>

    <p>We show the usual galleries of a user's media, as well as special
      galleries for tagging, and we also support user-curated
      "collections" of media.</p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>"Attachments" (for media source files and etc)</b></p>

    <p>If you have files that you used to make the final piece of media
      you're sharing and you want to share those also, MediaGoblin has an
      option to allow for that.</p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>Beginnings of a plugin system</b></p>

    <p>We have the beginnings of a plugin system, with already a couple of
      useful plugins (flatpages, so people setting up terms of service or
      similar non-dynamic pages are easy to add).</p>
  </li>
</ul>

<h2>Features that aren't developed yet but should be for 1.0:</h2>

<ul>
  <li>
    <p><b>API (for desktop/mobile app integration and so on)</b></p>
   
    <p>We have an API that is close to being completed, but isn't yet.
      This should allow external application authors to integrate
      directly with mediagoblin instances in various ways.  This will
      allow for mobile phone uploading of photos and videos, or
      direct-from-desktop uploading, or integration with other services.</p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>Federation</b></p>

    <p>One major feature is the need to hook together separate MediaGoblin
      instances and provide a social experience that feels as clean as if
      it users were on the same site (similar to how users on different
      email servers can communicate to each other from different servers
      but it feels that things are on the same thing).</p>

    <p>We intend to use the meta-standard OStatus to provide the following
      federated functionality:</p>

    <ul>
      <li>Ability to subscribe to other users across instances</li>
      <li>Favoriting across instances</li>
      <li>Cross-instance collections/galleries (think Flickr pool)</li>
    </ul>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>Audio and video podcasting support</b></p>

    <p>With podcasting support, MediaGoblin will enter a new area of
      usefulness as people are able to use it to broadcast shows to
      subscribers.</p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>Admin tools</b></p>

    <p>MediaGoblin needs better tools for administrators to be stewards of
      their instances, both to promote things appropriately and clean out
      problematic content and administer users.</p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>More and improved plugins</b></p>

    <p>We have plugin support already, but more plugins need to be built.
      These include:</p>

    <ul>
      <li>Comment spam prevention</li>
      <li>Moving some extensions into plugins (OpenStreetMap, etc)</li>
      <li>Limiting storage and upload space for various users</li>
    </ul>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>Easier installs and improved documentation</b></p>

    <p>MediaGoblin needs to be even easier to install and develop.  We can
      improve this situation with better packaging and stronger
      documentation.</p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>New media types</b></p>

    <p>In addition to the media types we have, new ones are on the way: 3d
   model support is close to being polished, and there may be other
   types added soon.</p>
  </li>

  <li>
    <p><b>More general polish</b></p>

    <p>MediaGoblin is well working software, but there are a lot of rough
   edges that still need to be smoothed out to make the experience
   better for users, such as cleaner submission processes, various
   adjustments to theming, and so on.  We will continue to add shine
   to MediaGoblin as we approach 1.0.</p>
  </li>
</ul>

<p>Wow.  Tall order!  But if you look at the first section and the
second section both, you can see we've already accomplished a lot.  We
can do this... but we need your help to make it happen!  MediaGoblin
has a wonderful volunteer community, but it takes a lot to
coordinate... the closer we can get to our full goal, the better we
can do to get a full and uninterrupted year of MediaGoblin development
and coordination.  Help us make all our dreams come true...
<a href="/pages/campaign.html">Support MediaGoblin!</a></p>

<p class="centered">
  <a href="/pages/campaign.html">
    <img src="/blog_images/support_mediagoblin-blagpost.png"
         alt="Gavroche imploring you to support mediagoblin!" />
  </a>
</p>
</body>
</html>